Hi Carol, As an addition to Jay's response (absolutely no argument with what he says!) I am more familiar with what went on in Upper and Lower Canada, where virtually all the "original" surveys were conducted by the military surveyors. (This was during a period of concern over invasion from the US.) I'm not totally clear if military surveyors entered military service already trained, or if they received their training "on the job," but there are numerous references (or hints) of surveyors working in parties of "assistants," which I've always taken to mean apprentices or trainees, in addition to boat-men and guides. I have also noticed references to trained soldiers retiring in Canada and setting up as commercial surveyors, after the drive for the military survey was mostly complete. I recognize that most of the basic surveys in the Atlantic provinces had already been completed well before the main survey programmes in Upper Canada were activated but there also seem to have been a continuing program of surveying - particularly in New Brunswick - in later years so it seems to me there would have been a possibility that a local trained surveyor could also have received that training during a period of military service. The emergence of any sort of educational establishment in any part of Canada was relatively slow (other than an occasional ad. hoc. school teaching basic three "R's" ) the first of these concentrating more on the teaching of "the classics" rather than trades or professions (always excepting the church.) Here, in what became Ontario, trade schools and professional associations didn't start to emerge until the late 1800's. That said, in 1851, I would have expected any professional "certification" to have come from "off-shore." On the other hand it seems that in "the bad old days" if you wanted to set up as a doctor, or a lawyer, or any sort of professional (except as a minister - perhaps) all you needed to do was hang out your "shingle" stating your claim and you were judged on your results. The point being - don't project today's standards and regulations on yesterdays society. Life today is FAR more complicated - for better or for worse! :) Malcolm Archive CD Books Canada Inc. President: Malcolm Moody PO Box 11 Manotick Ontario, K4M 1A2 Canada. (613) 692-2667 WEB SITE: http://www.ArchiveCDBooks.ca FACEBOOK: http://tinyurl.com/ACDB-Can-on-Facebook On 5 Aug, 2011, at 12:37 PM, newbrunswick-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 13:53:30 -0700 > From: "Carol Norman" <cgnorm@earthlink.net> > Subject: [ NB ] Training to be a Surveyor > To: "newbrunswicklist" <newbrunswick@rootsweb.com> > Message-ID: <380-22011833205330609@earthlink.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > Hello List, > A man on our family tree appeared in the 1851 census of Saint John with the occupation of surveyor. Does anyone know what kind of training one would have to have to pursue this trade? Was there any sort of official certification or licensing for surveyors at that time period that might be on record somewhere? Thanks much > > > Carol Norman > cgnorm@earthlink.net